Tribality.com Fails to Notice Mystara's Incredible Fan Base

Could Mystara be set to return as a published setting by Wizards of the Coast in the near future? Over the last few weeks, the rumor that WotC are planning to bring back three classic settings has lead to speculation all over the web about which three settings WotC are looking at. 

This incredible painting by Clyde Cladwell would have been a much better illustration for an article discussing the D&D World of Mystara.

Recently Tim Baker at The Piazza brought to my attention that an article at Tribality.com had a run down about what settings they thought were the most likely candidates. While the article was interesting, I found the description of Mystara very disappointing. Not only was the choice of image illustrating the setting disappointing, but it was especially this line that drew my attention:

"While fan love for this setting exists, it’s far quieter than other classic settings."

Mystara first appeared in 1981's classic adventure X1 Isle of Dread. While the setting was very popular and during the TSR era had more sourcebooks published for it than any other D&D or AD&D setting, the setting and its fans have a long history of being ignored by TSR and later WotC. While various teasers appeared for the setting during the D&D 3E and 4E eras, D&D 5th Edition was recieved especially positively for its explicit mention of the setting in the Players Handbook and with the adventure hardback Ghosts of Saltmarsh making extensive suggestions for how to adapt each chapter to the setting and even including a rewamped version of the Mystara adventure Isle of the Abbey. 

So how about this claim that the fans of Mystara are more quiet than fans of other settings? Mystara has had an incredibly active and dedicated online fan base that I have been a member of since the 1990s. Today these fans can be found on various Facebook groups including the 2,5000+ member Mystara Reborn group and on the D&D webforum The Piazza. The fan works of this highly productive and extremely friendly fan base is collected at the Vaults of Pandius website and also releases a quarterly 300+ page PDF professional looking free fanzine Threshold Magazine which is soon to release its 26th issue, not counting earlier iterations under other titles like the Mystara NetMag, Tome of Mystara etc.

So why is it that this community remains invisble to the world at large? Is it that we mostly prefer to stick to our own parts of the Internet? Or just that others don't know where to look for us? In any case it is a shame, because there are gamers out there who are missing out on something they might really enjoy!

-Havard

MMRPG Authors Talk Blackmoor at Comeback Inn Forum

 

My Website, the Comeback Inn has been hosting the MMRPG Blackmoor Adventures; modules easy to play with any edition of Dungeons & Dragons since 2011 with permission from all involved parties. In March, the final episode was made available as a free download. 

Moreover, we are lucky to have many of the authors of these adventures registered at the forum, eager to answer questions or just chat with fans. This week Gregory S Walker signed up to the forum. Gregory was part of the Terror Inc group of designers and contributed to such MMRPG adventures as Cutty Black Sow, Bug Hunt, Into the Lightless Dephts, The Dawn of Goss, Small Problems and Confectionary King II. Some of these adventures also helped explore the MMRPG created Blackmoor Subsetting known as the Dweomer Realm.

Greg signed up just in time for Blackmoor Week which starts on Monday leading up to Dave Arneson Game Day 2020 which will be arranged worldwide on October 1st as usual. I hope lots of people will take this opportunity to ask him and the other MMRPG authors some questions. 

Join us at The Comeback Inn to talk to the MMRPG authors and to find out more about Dave Arneson Game Day 2020.

JOIN THE FORUM HERE.

-Havard

New WotC Survey Has Questions About Dave Arneson

 Wizards of the Coast keep sending me these surveys and I am not sure if there is much point to me answering any of them since, even though I play 5th Edition (I play and enjoy all editions of D&D), I don't think they particularly care about my answers. 

Many of the questions this time around were, not surprisingly related to the Covid-19 situation and to virtual platforms/tools for gaming. However, I was surprised to see two questions related to famous D&D Game designers and see Dave Arneson's name listed as one of the possible answers!

The first questions was about what Game Designers you recognize and the second one was about what names would make you more likely to buy a product. 

Could this mean WotC are considering returning to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor? 

Wishful thinking for sure, but I made sure to click on Dave's name. 

The other names were a combination of current WotC designers and former WotC and TSR era designers. There were several names missing from the list than I would have liked to see on there, but I did like seeing Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubb and David Zeb Cook on the list. Again, it would be cool if this could mean something for Dragonlance, Spelljammer or even Taladas. 

Anyway, I am probably putting too much thought into this, but since I took the time completing the survey, I do think I should be getting something out of this! :D

Take the survey here (vote for Dave!)

-Havard 

Jim Holloway Has Passed Away (-June 29, 2020)

I'm sad to learn that prolific RPG artist Jim Holloway has passed away. A self-taught artist, Holloway started out doing illustrations for Dragon and Dungeon Magazines since 1981 and other TSR D&D products from 1983. In addition to working on Dungeons & Dragons products, Holloway produced paintings and illustrations for a number of RPGs including Paranoia (West End Games), FASA's Battletech, Chill (Pacesetter Games) and Sovereign Stone (Sovereign Press).


His son posted the following on a Facebook group dedicated to Holloway's art:

I feel like it’s necessary to post this because of all of the support everyone has given my dad over the course of this group. Earlier today, he passed away peacefully. My brother, uncle and I were there for him, holding his hand and telling him we loved him. To everyone who reached out or commented on my post about him being sick, thank you so much. It means a lot to us, and it meant a lot to him. Afterwards, I went to his house and looked at all of his old paintings. I wanted to share this one from the ‘70s with you all — a scene from The Hobbit, a book my dad forced me to read as a kid (I’m not complainin!) it’s a picture of the painting, not a scan, so I apologize for the unlit sections. But if everyone could please continue to share his art in this group and wherever else, my family would really appreciate you helping us keep his memory alive. He was a talented man, and I love seeing the stuff everyone shares.

I personally have fond memories of his humorous interior illustrations in Mystara's Gaz10 The Orcs of Thar as well as his work in Paranoia RPG. His unique style made his art easy to recognize even for a young gamer like myself back then.


Rest in Peace.




Image: Photo taken from Jim's no longer existing website.

-Havard

[Artifacts] Dave Arneson's Tome of Chaos

Note: This article was updated on May 16th to correct mistakes and add information provided by Dan Boggs and Jon Peterson. 

The Tome of Chaos

This dark artifact from the original Blackmoor setting is drawn from an adventure that Dave Arneson ran at different conventions in the 1970s. The book's cover is made from human skin and is adorned by a skull. Opening the book without speaking the proper rituals will release all kinds of evil undead spirits to destroy anyone in sight. The quest was simple. Venture into the dungeon below Castle Blackmoor and recover the book. The forces of darkness could not be permitted to have such a book in their posession. Deep within the dungeon there is a library filled with ancient tomes and scrolls. The Tome of Chaos was found on a pedistal at the center of the room. But why was the temptation to open the book so strong?

This artifact is not mentioned in any published material from Dave Arneson, but recently two separate accounts of Dave Arneson using this adventure for conventions has been discovered. The earliest account is from a convention in San Jose, California in 1976 where Dave Arneson and various other TSR personalities as accounted by in this youtube video by Jim Murphy. From Jon Peterson we learn that the same adventure involving the book was also used by Dave Arneson at Origins Game Fair at Staten Island New York in 1977. Arneson had quit TSR and TSR were boycotting Origins. 

Although the concept of an evil book is something that goes back in history, it is interesting that the Book of Vile Darkness appeared in D&D Supplement I: Greyhawk which came out in 1975, the the year before Dave used this adventure in San Jose. However, the effects of the Book of Vile Darkness are quite different from those of the Tome of Chaos so the two might be completely unrelated items. Or it is also possible that the book from Dave Arneson's campaign, which I have dubbed the Tome of Chaos was created much earlier by Arneson when he was developing the Blackmoor Dungeon. Over at the Comeback Inn, Blackmoor fans have been speculating to where in the dungeon this secret library might have been located. Right now, evidence points towards the library being found on Dungeon Level 5 even though this is not specified in either of the two published versions of the dungeon. If we learn more about the library's location or more details on the properties of the Tome of Chaos, I will make sure to share it!

Further discussion of this article here

Artifacts: Artifacts is a new series of articles where I write about powerful magical items and relics of the Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting which have appeared in any published version of the setting or in Dave Arneson's original campaign. Stay tuned for more! 

About the illustration: The hand crafted book depicted apparently exists in real life and was sold at the etsy website. Would be sweet to own one of these!



-Havard

Greg Svenson's Lost Dungeon of Tonisborg: What Can The Maps Tell Us?

The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg is an adventure with a history going back to the Blackmoor Campaign of the 1970s. It was created by Greg Svenson, player in Dave Arneson's campaign back in 1973/1974. Greg placed the adventure in Blackmoor and the city also appeared in Dave's campaign, although when the First Fantasy Campaign was published in 1977, Dave changed the name of the city to Vestfold, which was kept in later publications of Blackmoor. The origins of Vestfold and Tonisborg are discussed in more detail in this article.

Greg's Dungeon Maps were thought lost forever untill a copy was rediscovered by another member of Dave Arneson's group, David Megarry, the designer of Dungeon! More details about the dungeon and its rediscovery can be read at Dan Bogg's blog here. A rewamped version of the dungeon is currently in the works to be published as a special stretch goal for the Secrets of Blackmoor Kickstarter. Recently many backers of the Kickstarter have joined the Comeback Inn Forum as the Secrets of Blackmoor creators have promised to share more details with Kickstarter backers there.

Recently, the Secrets of Blackmoor Facebook page shared Megarry's copies of the original dungeon maps for Dungeon Level 1 and Dungeon Level 3 of the Tonisborg Dungeon. It is interesting to see that this map shares certain features with Dave Arneson's dungeon maps that are less common in dungeon maps from later decades. We see the characteristic diagonal corridors, non-standard rooms and long corridors that seem to lead to no rooms.

David Megarry offered the following suggestion to why Dave Arneson may have used diagonal corridors in his dungeons

"My hunch is that it is a consequence of Arneson drawing the roads and streams for table top battlefield maps for the Napoleonic Campaign. Outside of urban areas, roads and streams go any which way; it is only in cities and towns you end up with grid systems (though some older east coast towns road designs may have been drawn by drunken city planners, who knows?;) He did use graph paper to draw his maps but was not bound by those grid lines. If you look at the original Blackmoor town map, you can see that a tunnel from the town to Elf home or the Freehold would follow a diagonal line." 

This theory certainly makes sense, and I do agree that Dave Arneson was probably thinking in terms of what was going on above ground much more than what later dungeon mappers would have been. From the FFC we know that his maps point towards where certain corridors would connect to other dungeons (like the Glendower dungeon connecting to the Blackmoor Dungeon) and other parts of Blackmoor.


Interestingly, this might also tell us how the designers of such maps (in this case Greg) imagined the surface world above the dungeon might have appeared. Upon Greg's suggestion, I placed Tonnisborg on the small island outside of Vestfold. Do I need to revise my city plan map now? :)

-Havard

New Blackmoor Livestreamed Campaign From Blackmoor Author Tad Kilgore and MMRPG Alumni

Live Streamed Dungeons & Dragons gaming is incredibly popular these days, so it is great seeing a live streamed game set in the first D&D campaign setting, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.

This campaign is hosted by Tad Kilgore who has a long history with the setting. He was campaign organized for the Blackmoor MMRPG and was the author of the Riders of Hak Sourcebook for the Blackmoor d20 line. The players in this campaign are also people with a history of writing for the Blackmoor MMRPG campaign as well as being long time friends of Tad.

The players include:

• Phil Slama, former head of Terror Inc. and MMRPG author. Phil has also released several 5E adventures which are available for free at The Comeback Inn.
• Jenn Barth, former MMRPG author
• Mathew Tearle, former MMPRG author and member of Terror Inc.
• Jimmy, a newcomer to Blackmoor. Which is also awesome! 

This campaign uses the D&D 5th Edition Rules and is centered around the Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor and starts out at The Comeback Inn. It is going to be extremely interesting to follow these adventures!

The Campaign is livestreamed in Twitch and is also available on YouTube. You can also follow the campaign on Facebook via Kilgore's Lair page and the Blackmoor Fans Facebook Group.



-Havard